


Russkaya

by GreenMeridian



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Fluff, M/M, and some humour too, with a side order of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 02:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20220427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenMeridian/pseuds/GreenMeridian
Summary: “Would it kill you to celebrate a little for once? Let yourself smile? Hell, let me have a damn moment of happiness?”





	Russkaya

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elenatria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elenatria/gifts).

> Another work inspired by a Tumblr post, and another work caused by Elenatria!
> 
> https://elenatria.tumblr.com/post/186942850978/the-miners-are-making-good-progress-and-the

“It’s out, Valera! And the miners are making incredible progress, they say the whole job will be finished in four weeks, can you believe it?”

He tipped out the water in Valery’s glass and replaced it with vodka, jubilant for the first time since Valery abruptly delivered the news of his death sentence. Glukhov, that stubborn bastard, what a champion. He’d always liked miners, the rough honesty of them, the self-assuredness, and these boys were the best of the bunch. First thing tomorrow, he’d work on securing some crates of the good stuff to hand out to the lads for when the job was complete. If anyone deserved to get roiling drunk, it was them.

The grin began to slide from his face when he realised Valery was still staring at the notepad in his hand. He sighed. For god’s sake, could the man not allow them a little happiness? Even surrounded by all this?

“I know the job isn’t over. But it’s the beginning of the end!”

Go on Valery, drink up. Pick up the damn glass, come on. He stared intently at him, willing him to cooperate. Jesus, it was like trying to coax a wounded animal from its hiding place. Valery looked up at him forlornly.

No, a wounded animal would at least growl at you, show a bit of life. This was just depressing.

“But it’s not over, is it Boris?” said Valery, shaking his head. “Yes the fire is gone, but now we have to spend four weeks watching those men shorten their lives, when we don’t know for certain if they even need to!”

Ok, that was a valid point, Boris supposed. But still...

“And we have to bring more men in, we have to raze entire forests, villages. For god’s sake Boris, we even have to bury the earth! And even after that, it still won’t be over. Not in our lifetime, not for hundreds of years.”

Oh for the love of...

“Would it kill you to celebrate a little for once? Let yourself smile? Hell, let me have a damn moment of happiness?”

“You can’t keep feeding the dogs either,” Valery continued, showing no sign of having heard him. “We have to shoot them all. Well, not us, but men! Men WE have to send out into that poison to kill every dog, every cat, every animal still alive out there!”

Boris blinked at him, the smile on his face totally gone now, the empty misery he’d been feeling since the five years conversation steadily returning.

“For fuck’s sake Valera. Can you stop? Can we PLEASE just have a fucking drink and pat each other on the back and I don’t know, not talk about killing dogs? Maybe celebrate a fucking victory? Please? Goddamn it man, this is Russkaya!”

“I’m sorry Boris but I can’t ignore the truth!”

He looked about as desperate as Boris felt, like he was about to start crying. Yes, he was a genius, and Boris couldn’t deny the man had monstrously huge balls, but dear god, he was far too fucking high strung. Not to mention how uncomfortable Boris was around displays of emotionality like this. Anger he could do, but this... hysteria, and anything involving tears... no, definitely not. Have a bit of damn stoicism man, for my sake, he thought helplessly. Don’t make me have to deal with you crying.

“I’m sorry... I’m sorry. It’s just... how do you do it, Boris?”

“How do I do what?”

“How do you go from knowing you’re going to die, telling those men that three of them needed to volunteer to die out of duty, standing in this hell knowing what it’s doing to you, to us... how do you go from that to smiling? To pouring out vodka, to wanting to celebrate?”

Boris sighed. When women in his life had gotten themselves in a state, his solution had been to hug them. One ex girlfriend had once said it was impossible not to calm down when ‘surrounded by your big strong arms’ and he half wondered if maybe that was the solution here, if pulling Valery into body and holding him until he calmed down was the best way of quieting him. Valery was smaller in height and frame than him, his broad chest and thick arms would surely provide a nice cocoon for Valery to feel safe in. And he’d always thought that Valery’s hair looked quite silken, stroking his head to soothe him wouldn’t be much of a hardship. Valery wasn’t skin and bones either, he was stocky in his own way, likely fairly squishy in places. He was probably quite pleasant to hold, now that he thought about it.

Fuck, where in the fuck had that come from? He needed a drink. He picked up Valery’s glass and downed the contents as easily as if were still water. Valery looked at him, desperation in his eyes. As though he was waiting for Boris to tell him how to get through it all. Boris wished he had an answer for him.

“I don’t know how I end up smiling. You just have to. I don’t know how you don’t, not without blowing your brains out.”

Valery flinched and stopped meeting his eye and Boris felt his stomach clench. That was not a normal reaction. He knew he hadn’t read about anything like that in his file, he would have remembered something as serious as that, but still. It was concerning.

“Sorry. Fuck. I didn’t mean it like that.” He sighed, and rubbed his palm over his face. “I just meant, you always look like someone’s just pissed in your coffee. You should find something to smile about, lighten up a bit. Things are shit enough here, don’t make it worse for yourself than it already is. Come on, have a drink with me. We’re in this together, you can share the victories with me.”

A soldier came into the trailer before Valery had a chance to answer and the sight of the naked miners took both their minds off things enough that they found themselves sitting in the hotel bar together, sharing a bottle anyway. Several shots in, and Valery already had a slight flush to his face, his glasses abandoned on the bar. It warmed Boris’ heart, seeing him relaxed like that. It took years off him, he even looked quite handsome without that defeated look marring his face. He actually had a nice smile, despite his muscles obviously being out of practice. It made his eyes crinkle pleasingly, made his cheekbones stand out a little. 

“Boris? Are you even listening?”

Boris blinked. How long had he been staring at Valery’s face?

“What? What did you say?”

Valery smiled timidly at him and Boris felt a strange warmth in his chest.

“I was talking about the miners. It doesn’t matter. Boris, were you… were you looking at me?”

“No! No, of course not, why would I be? I was… thinking, that’s all. It’s been a long day, maybe I’ve had too much to drink.”

“You’ve had as much as me and I doubt you have a lower alcohol tolerance than I do.”

The smile was still on Valery’s face, though it has morphed into something less coy and more amused. Teasing. Valery wasn’t looking directly at him, his head was tilted down slightly and he was looking up at him through his eyelashes. His incredibly light eyelashes. Blond, maybe? Or a shade of ginger like his hair? Valery blinked slowly at him and Boris realised he’d gone silent again.

“I can drink twice as much as it takes to knock you out and still be standing!” he said, ignoring whatever bizarre tension seemed to be building between them. Macho boasts about his drinking capabilities, that was easier. He knew where he was with that. Nice familiar territory.

“I don’t doubt it. I’d hate to see how much it would take to bring you down,” Valery replied, his smile strengthening.

“You Russians, you think you know how to drink vodka but it’s nothing compared to what a Ukrainian can handle!” he downed his shot and poured himself another, downing that too and sitting up straighter on his stool, letting a smug grin appear on his face. Valery just chuckled softly, looking down at his own glass and shaking his head.

“I wonder what Glukov would say, if he heard you showing off like this?”

“Well now, that’s different. Miners are all Ukrainians at heart, if not by birth!”

“And is it common for Ukrainians to walk around naked too? Or is it only iron livers that you have in common?”

Boris laughed heartily at that, giving the bar a thump with his fist and swinging his arm over Valery’s shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie.

“Fuck, you look liked you were going to collapse earlier! It’s a good thing you were never in the military, you would have died of embarrassment in the shower before you ever saw combat.”

Valery began laughing too, the sound of it rich and carefree. Boris felt the heat in his chest again, but the two extra shots of vodka was making it less disconcerting then it had been. They laughed together for a while, Boris’ arm remaining draped over Valery, and Valery leaning against him slightly as the alcohol took hold of him.

As the laughter died down, they settled into a companionable silence, and it somehow didn’t occur to Boris to take his arm back. Valery didn’t seem to mind. Boris was right earlier, he thought. Valery fit nicely against him like this, warm and solid, his own arm surprisingly firm under Boris’ hand. Not the arm of a man who lifted weights, but not the arm of a man who lifted only pencils either.

Valery poured them both another drink, shifting even further into Boris as he did so. Boris hadn’t realised quite how close their bar stools were when they sat down, perhaps one or both of them had pushed them further together at some point, but Valery was flush with his body now and still managing to remain comfortably seated. Boris’ arm seemed less like that of a comrade now, more like was deliberately holding Valery close. Keeping him near. Keeping him safe. They swallowed their drinks without a word, Valery spluttering slightly. The heat in Boris’ chest had slowly spread across his body, but vodka was clouding his brain and he was struggling to remember why he should be wary of it. The heat was mingling with a tension building in his belly, spreading that too, despite the alcohol making his muscles feel lax and unwieldy.

Valery turned his body slightly and his head came to rest against Boris’ chest, the heat of his breath making it’s way through the fabric of Boris’ shirt and ever-so-slightly moistening his skin. Boris looked down at him, watching his own breath ruffle Valery’s thin red hair. Warm polyester appeared under his palm and it took a moment or two to register that the hand not gripping Valery’s arm (gripping it? When had that happened?) was on Valery’s thigh, just above his knee. The material of Valery’s shitty suit trousers was against his skin, and under that, Valery’s warm and undoubtedly pale flesh. He stared at his hand, and swallowed as Valery’s own came to join it, resting on top of it. Gently stroking the skin of his wrist just inside his sleeve with soft fingertips. He needed to do something, the tension was becoming unbearable, he felt like he was waiting for the order to charge the enemy, like he was waiting for a starting pistol. His breathing had become shallow and he realised that under the smell of cigarettes and vodka, he could smell the remains of Valery’s shampoo.

“Are we really in this together, Borja?” Valery mumbled into his chest. Boris’ breath caught at the diminutive form of his name falling so casually from Valery’s lips. He bent his head until his nose was buried in Valery’s hair and softly inhaled the smell of him, something musky and unique noticable beneath the shampoo.

“Yes,” he murmured, lips pressing a kiss against Valery’s head. “We are.”

Valery made a quiet, satisfied noise and snuggled closer into him, and Boris closed his eyes. The room was becoming slightly blurry around the edges anyway. They’d have to get up soon before one or both of them fell asleep, otherwise they’d end up on the floor. But he wasn’t quite ready to leave yet and judging by the small kiss he felt against his chest, Valery was quite content to stay too.

**Author's Note:**

> thegreenmeridian.tumblr.com


End file.
